coldDeath

Hi all,
I decided to post here because PFO members are helpful and they know what they're talking about. (well most of the time)

Basically put, my computer is freezing. Sometimes it happens after a couple of mins, sometimes after a couple of hours. The monitor stays on, but the mouse, keyboard and modem all turn off. I have to reboot the computer to get it to work again. Also sometimes when the computer turns on, it doesn't turn on the monitor or any peripherals so i have to reboot and then it works.

This has been happenening for about 2 weeks now and i need to fix it.


I made this computer myself a few years back and here are the specs:

Intel Celeron 1.7Ghz CPU (booo celeron)
512MB DDR RAM
NVidia GeForce FX 5500 Graphics card

I also have 2 harddrives, but only one is plugged in at a time.
One HD is 60GB and has Data, Fedora Core 4 and Windows XP, The other is 40GB and has Slackware 10.2.



Here are my findings so far:

+ It freezes on all of my Operating Systems, showing it is most likely to be a hardware issue

+ I installed KSensor to check my CPU temp and at the time of the last crash it was 51 degrees and that is fine for a celeron, so i think it isn't overheating

+ It can't be the harddrive because it crashes on both harddrives



So does anyone have any ideas about what it could be?

__________________

Ooble

(he's talking about me there )

Have you checked for badly-seated RAM? Made sure your graphics card is in correctly?

__________________
Me :: You :: Them

coldDeath

Ooble:
I have two sticks of 256MB of RAM, so i was thinking maybe, as it takes a while before it is crashing, it is when the first piece of RAM gets full up and then tries to go to the second piece. So i removed the second piece and it wouldn't even turn the screen on at all! so i stuck it back in as well as i could then rebooted to slack.

Since i did that it hasn't crashed for about 2 hours which is pretty nice, i'm hoping that it will work now.

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Lich

check all your hardware internally as well as your fans, if they're going out it could cause a freeze. Also check your power supply with a multimeter, mine was freezing up the other day and I switched out the power supply and it's now fine.

Also, don't count out the hard drives as problems. If they're both powered on at the same time and 1 is failing power wise then it can kill the whole system, same goes for any device that routes through the board that uses power.

__________________
--John Cruz
Web Developer
www.cruzweb.net

Dameon

In the event that re-seating the ram didn't permanently fix it:

1. Unplug all but one of your hard-drives from power (The one with your OS of choice on it) to see if the power supply is choking.

2. With all hard-drives unplugged, run memtest86. It fits on a floppy and is included on many linux install CDs.

3. Swap out with a different, working power supply of the same rating. (In case the one you are using isn't bad, just a little small). If the known to work power supply doesn't work, try a higher rated power supply.

I am leaning in the direction of power supply or ram issues as you can tell. Either can cause intermittent and peculiar problems. Power supplies in my experience can fail partially as well, such as when everything worked except my hard-drives after my cat impacted the computer. It's always good to have a spare power supply sitting around for diagnosing strange hardware issues. What is the rating of the power supply that you are using?

Mods: Should this really be in the lounge? A computer hardware question seems to be just as valid a topic as any in the language forums, and should therefore go towards post count.

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MD5(sig) = bcef75433db02e9ad9bf81d6f7c5c270

coldDeath

Dameon: I only use one harddrive at a time anyway. I have found that after i took the RAM out then in again, my computer hasn't frozen for 5 hours, so i think it is fixed.

This always happens, i have a problem for weeks then i post a message and solve it right afterwards...

Thanks for all of your help

__________________

coldDeath

Life is so fucking harsh.

After 5 mins of writing that post my computer crashed. wtf.

I'll run memtest.

__________________

Lich

wait a sec. Lounge posts don't go towards post count?

__________________
--John Cruz
Web Developer
www.cruzweb.net

Ooble

That'd be why I'm back on 3000, mate.

__________________
Me :: You :: Them

OpenLoop

coldDeath, your motherboard is going bye bye, but I have some good news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance... you know the rest if you live in the US.

But seriously, this seems like a motherboard problem, what kind of motherboard do you have?